1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat module.
2. Description of the Related Art
A common method to forcibly cool a heat source is to mount a heat sink upon the heat source and cause an air current generated by a cooling fan to strike the heat sink to accomplish air cooling. For example, a heat module as disclosed in JP-A 2008-103439 includes a centrifugal fan, a heat sink, and a heat pipe, and air is caused by rotation of an impeller to strike the heat sink to cool heat transferred from a heat source. However, this method may allow the amount of heat generated from the heat source to exceed the heat capacity of the heat sink, making it impossible to improve an ability to cool the heat source, in the case where the heat source generates a large amount of heat or where the surface area of the heat sink is small.
In recent years, various notebook PCs have been becoming thinner and thinner, with increasing popularity of tablet PCs. If PCs become increasingly thinner, the heat module as described above will not be able to ensure a sufficient thickness of the heat sink and a sufficient surface area of the heat sink. In addition, use of servers has been increasing in volume year after year with the spread of cloud computing. Thus, there have been a demand for space saving regarding spaces in which the servers are installed, and a demand for a reduction in the size of the servers. In recent years, SSDs have often been used in the servers. Systems on a chip (SoCs) used for the SSDs tend to generate an increasingly large amount of heat to increase circuit integration and improve access performance, and when a heat sink having a small thickness is used, the amount of heat generated by the SoC may exceed a heat capacity of the heat sink. If the reduction in the size of the servers progresses, a need will arise to increase the capacity of the SSDs, which will lead to an increased amount of heat generated by the SoCs. If the amount of heat generated by the SoCs further increases, the heat modules will be required to further improve in cooling capabilities.
In view of the above, while there is a need for an increase in the surface area of the heat sink, an improvement in the air volume of a blower fan, and so on, the increase in the surface area of the heat sink runs counter to a reduction in the thickness of a case as described above. Meanwhile, the improvement in the air volume of the blower fan can be accomplished by an increase in the size of the blower fan or an increase in the rotation rate of the blower fan. The increase in the size of the blower fan may make it impossible to install the blower fan in a PC having a small thickness, for example, whereas the increase in the rotation rate of the blower fan may produce a noise problem. Therefore, with a reduction in the thickness of the heat module, a reduction in noise, and so on in view, a novel contrivance is needed regarding a method for heat dissipation.